This is the latest post in a
series about Bertrand
Russell's essay
Why I am not a Christian, in which I run through his various
arguments and show that for the most part (there are a few exceptions)
they either don't apply to
classical theism, or are just completely invalid in the first place.
But another striking thing about Russell's work are the arguments he
omitted.

First of all, I should mention the ontological argument. This is probably
the most controversial of the arguments for God, and I'm personally not
the biggest fan of it. In its simplest form, it defines God as the
greatest being conceivable, states that whatever exists is greater than
something which doesn't exist; so if God doesn't exist there is a being
greater than him which is a contradiction; therefore God exists. Even
though it has been expressed in more rigorous forms, most famously by
Plantinga, I feel that the argument has its problems. Firstly there is the
issue of getting from this definition of God to the classical definition
of God as the uncreatable creator; one can define God in that way and
subsequently argue for his greatness, but defining God in terms of
greatness is harder to reach the concept of God as creator.
Secondly, we have to ask what we mean by the greatness of God. Without a
prior definition of God, it is difficult to say what it is for God to be
great or the greatest possible being. So I am not convinced that the
definition itself makes sense as a definition of God (it makes sense after
we have defined God through some other means, but as a definition it is
circular).

Next up we have the teleological argument, or the argument from final
causality. This is most definitely not the same as the argument from
design. One of the biggest made by modern atheists (and that's saying
quite a lot) is to confuse these
two arguments. I discussed the teleological argument in
a previous post,
so don't intend to dwell on it here. Not considering this argument
is a serious omission not just made by Russell but also most atheist
philosophers. Presumably Russell thought that it had been refuted
alongside final causality itself by the success of modern science. This
is, however, foolish. Final causality is very much a part of physics;
we know that causes can have a limited number of effects. In particle
physics, for example, we list the possible decay channels of a particle.
This is just the application of the metaphysical concept of final
causality to this area of physics. Even in a mechanistic setting,
dismissing final causality is problematic. Given that the true theory
of nature is almost certainly a quantum field theory, it is stupid.

Then we have the argument from prophecy. In this context, prophecy means
non-obvious predictions of future events; the Biblical understanding of
prophecy is broader, and indicates a general message from God given
through an individual. Indeed, the Biblical prophets spent only a little
of their time predicting the future, and far more of it exhorting the
people to live moral lives and return to Godly service. However, it is
their foreshadowing of the events of the New Testament
which particularly caught the eyes of Christians; and this is what we
often think of when we hear the word prophecy, and it is in
this sense that I use the term here. Of course, the Old Testament predicts
far more than just the New Testament events and theological framework.

This argument is also controversial.
Russell can, perhaps, be excused here because we are moving away from
purely philosophical argumentation to the more practical evidence for
God. However, whether an argument from prophecy is possible in
principle is a matter for philosophical discussion; many atheists and
liberal theologians will dismiss the argument out of hand because of
their philosophical prejudices. It is those prejudices I want to
discuss here, rather than any actual prophetic utterance.

There are (I think) five ways in which somebody can in principle
be aware of future events:

A lucky guess.

To have access to some time travel technology (which, as far as
we know, is scientifically impossible).

To be able to predict the future through knowledge of the
current situation and compute it using physics or
other means. Given that physics is indeterminate at the microscopic
level and many systems are chaotic, this is in practice impossible.

To be in control of the physical evolution of matter; for the
indeterminacy of physics to be the result of your own free choices.
This is only possible for God.

To be a timeless being, and view each temporal slice together
rather than in succession. In this way for you the concepts of 'future'
and 'past' have no meaning, and you would simultaneously see the
future event and tell the prophet about it. This is only possible for
a being similar to God (or God Himself).

One or
two successful predictions could be considered a coincidence. A mixed bag
of successful and failed predictions is to be expected. A long list of
predictions
which are either successful or haven't yet been
fulfilled but might well be is a stronger case.

If there is a long list of successful prophecies, then
considering the possible means by which this could happen, we are left
with either an extremely unlikely chance or possibilities which presuppose
some God-like being. Turning it
around, the list of successful prophecies is strong evidence for the
existence of God or some other being similar in some respects to God.

Of course, I hid away several potential drawbacks to the argument in that
initial if the list exists. Firstly, one has to be sure that the
prophecy was made after the events concerned; if the date of writing is
unclear it is possible to argue that the writings were post-dictions
rather than pre-dictions. Our earliest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old
Testament are the dead sea scrolls, about 100 years before Christ. The
Greek translation of the first books of the Old Testament was made about
250BC, with the rest of the Old Testament translated in the decades
following that. Given that the Old Testament must have been
revered among the Jews for the translation to be commissioned by an
Egyptian Pharaoh, it must be at least a few generations earlier than
that translation.
The traditional date of the Old Testament is that the first five books
were written either by Moses or one of his contemporaries, probably
about 1400BC (although Joshua's Jericho was almost certainly the city destroyed
at the end of the Middle Bronze Age or start of the Late Bronze Age,
which might imply that Moses lived somewhat earlier than this);
Joshua towards the end of Joshua's life about 30 or 40 years
later; the book of Judges compiled from earlier sources during the united
monarchy at about 1000BC, Kings and Chronicles compiled during the exile
or shortly after it at about 500BC; Ezra and Nehemiah at around 450BC;
the Prophets during the lifetime of each prophet between about 800-500BC and the
individual Psalms, Proverbs and other wisdom literature written between
about 1000-600BC and compiled
together after the exile. These are the earliest possible dates for the
manuscripts. Obviously scholars dispute these numbers,
with most secular and liberal scholars preferring much later dates.
Even if the originals were written at the traditional dates, they could well have
been edited and revised later. Some books are obviously an edited
compilation (e.g. Proverbs was gradually expanded from a much smaller original;
the last few chapters of Judges were clearly
tacked on at a later date to the composition of the main body of the text).
With no written records to guide us, we are left with the historical
anachronisms, internal evidence and archaeological hints. My own feeling is
that there are enough of these to support without rigorously proving the
traditional dates. The archaeology of the Old Testament is particularly
fascinating; the mainstream view is that broad outline of the Biblical
picture of the divided monarchy period is well supported by the
archaeological evidence, but before this the Old Testament becomes
increasingly shaky. However, this opinion is not as universal as
sometimes proclaimed, and conservative scholars argue that the
archaeological evidence fits in well with the Biblical narrative back
to the time of Abraham (I personally admire the
work of JohnBimson
and his colleagues and Bryant Wood
and his colleagues
and believe that they have the best framework for making the archaeology of
the Old Testament harmonious; though I should also mention the redoubtable
Kenneth Kitchen who has a different interpretation). To my mind this
topic deserves far greater attention than is often received (the
strongest argument against Christianity and Judaism lies here; and Islam
also assumes the correctness of the broad outline of the Old Testament,
although I consider other objections to Islam to be far stronger than
this).

The New Testament gospels, on the other hand can be more firmly dated.
Manuscript evidence (from the earliest manuscript fragments, or quotations
and allusions from early Christian writers) pushes them into the first
century. The events they
describe place them after about 35 AD. Traditionally, John's gospel was
written towards the end of the first century, with Matthew, Mark and Luke
in the 50s or 60s. Secular and liberal scholars push these dates back to
the late first century. Interestingly, the argument from prophecy plays
a big role in this. Secular scholars claim that the supposed predictions
of the Jewish temple's destruction (and a few other reasons, such as
similarities with Josephus) push the dates to after 70AD. Conservative
scholars take the same accounts and note minor details, particularly in
Luke's account which was based on Matthew and Mark, which make little
sense if the accounts were not genuine predictions and composed before
the temples destruction (for example, Luke confuses the temple destruction
with the return of Jesus -- two separate events in his sources; there is
no reference or allusion to the prophecy being fulfilled in the and
the plea to pray that the destruction should not occur in winter is
strange as a post-diction invented after the fact because the siege of
Jerusalem happened in the summer).

The upshot of this is that Old Testament predictions of events which
occurred before about 300BC and New Testament predictions of events which
occurred before about 100AD can be disputed because it is possible that
they were written or re-edited after the event occurred. On the other hand,
events which occurred after this time must have been genuine Biblical
predictions; this cannot be reasonably disputed in light of the evidence.
We also have to ask how well the text we have today resembles the original
written (perhaps) two and a half thousand years ago or even more.

Secondly, prophecies are often vague. This might be a necessary part of the
nature of the thing, but it does reduce the impact of a successful prediction.
Of course, if a text has several competing interpretations, then it might
be thought that only one
of them can be the correct interpretation (although in reality, Biblical
texts often have both an immediate interpretation for the original
context and a second interpretation that relates to future events). To
claim something as a successful prophecy, only one interpretation needs
be correct. This interpretation might well contain allegory, metaphor or
hyperbole; it need not be the direct meaning.

Thirdly, there is the issue of the time scale. It is easy to say This
city is doomed to fall! Over the past two and a half thousand years
since the prophecy was made, most cities in the world have fallen, risen,
and fallen again several times. The argument can be made that given enough
time, and sufficient vagueness in the original prophecy, the prediction
is as likely as not to come true. For example, those who claim the success
of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the nations or cities often
look to Byzantine or medieval times for their fulfilment; critics of the
prophecies restrict themselves to the pre-Roman era. Which of these is
most in line with the original text?

Finally, we have to ask whether or not the Biblical prophecies have come
true. Are there as many failures as there are successes? A few failures
can, perhaps be tolerated; they might just be events which will happen,
just not yet. But too many excused in this way makes it sound like
special pleading.

Thus to argue for Christianity (or another religion) from prophecy is
a difficult task; as is to argue against Christianity. One would have to
go through every prophecy in the Bible and show that one possible interpretation for each prophecy is successful far more frequently than chance could explain
(or that all interpretations of each property fail at the rate expected by coincidence), which requires both detailed
knowledge of the Biblical text and the various literary forms used in it
and of history. Of course,
thathasn'tstoppedpeople
from trying, with various degrees of success.

Is the argument from prophecy successful? This obviously depends on which
holy book you are planning to use, and how accurate the predictions in
that book are. But supposing that we had a set of prophecies which are
suitable. How would the argument proceed?

In the absence of God, the only way these prophecies could be
successful is through an unlikely coincidence, or some scenario inconsistent with our current knowledge of physics.

If, on the over hand, there is a God, then there is an alternative
explanation, which is that the prophet was influenced by some timeless
being such as God. Now there are numerous different characters which
God could have consistent with the basic premises of classical theism.
For example, we have the Jewish view of God, the Christian view of God,
the Islamic view of God and so on. The argument would only apply to
those views of God which are consistent with all the prophets who
made these successful predictions, and will that God would also have to be
the sort of Person who likes influencing prophets and doesn't play practical jokes on them. But, if that is the
case, then for some understanding of God it is almost certain that
there would be some prophetic record similar to that which is
(by supposition) observed. Thus if this God exists (or a member of the
subset of possible Gods consistent with the prophetic record exits),
there are two possible explanations for the prophetic record:
chance, and inspiration by God.

Thirdly, we suppose that aside from the prophecy, there is no strong
competing evidence against God.

Fourthly, I note that there are various assumptions and evidence
agreed on by both theists and atheists. These include (among other
things) scientific
law, the historical context in which the prophecy was made, and the
historical evidence concerning its fulfilment. Clearly this excludes
any area where there is sufficient controversy to affect beliefs
concerning the genuineness of the prophecy.

So the probability of the record of prophecy appearing (or
something similar to it) conditional
upon the assumption that that God does not exist (alongside the various
other premises and evidence accepted by both atheists and theists)
is vanishingly small.
The probability of the record of prophecy appearing (or
something similar to it) conditional upon
the assumption that God does exist (alongside the various
other premises and evidence accepted by both theists and atheists) is
exceptionally close to one. We then use Bayes theorem to reverse the
conditions and say that the probability of the God (or subset of
possible Gods) we are considering conditional upon the record of
prophecy together with the other premises and assumptions is close to one.

Obviously this argument has a remaining weakness: it leads us to a
timeless being, which if not omniscient and omnipotent at least has
substantial knowledge and the power to influence the prophet. Is this
God as defined in classical theism? It is not clear that it must be
the case; that depends on what else concerning the character of God is
revealed by the prophets. However, it also has the advantage.
Philosophical theology is an intellectual exercise to understand the
existence and nature of God. We can go a long way with it. But it is
also a dry experience, it does not bring us into relationship with
God. Philosophy does not go as far as we need to go to understand God
well enough to get to know Him. It is helpful as a sign to point us in
the right direction, but the signpost is not the destination. Prophecy
can fill in the gap; it can not only satisfy the intellect but our
emotions and sense of awe and wonder as well. It leads us to a vibrant
and personal knowledge of God.

Next we have the argument from religious experience. Again, unlike
the philosophical arguments, this doesn't just lead us to some vague
intellectual concept of God, but an encounter which satisfies both
our intellect, senses and emotions. It does, however, have a serious
disadvantage that it is subjective. Only the person who experiences it
will be convinced by it. Furthermore, we know that devotees of
different religions have similar experiences. These experiences are
contradictory; they can't all be genuine. Thus it is possible for such
experiences to be generated from some non-divine source; perhaps even
from nothing more than the biochemistry of the human brain. Of course,
theists would attribute the biochemistry of the human brain to God;
there is no reason why the experience can't be explained both by
scientific processes and as an act of God. However, if the usual laws
of physics can lead to religious experience, it is not a death blow to
the theist, but it offers an escape clause to the atheist (who
attributes those laws to something other than God's acts in sustaining
the universe).

What this means is that a religious experience by itself should not
be enough to convince us of the truth of our religious beliefs. It
can be misleading, and lead us into error. It needs to be backed up
by some other evidence or rational argument. This is why, as
Christians, we are asked to test the spirits. Not everything that is
claimed to be from the Holy Spirit is truly from the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, if a particular religion predicts the possibility
of such experiences, then their general absence would be
argumentation against that religion (one or two people failing to
have the experience would not be a problem; nobody having it would be
a serious problem). Equally, there is also no obvious reason, if
atheism were true, why our brains should be wired to have such
experiences. If theism is true, we expect it. If atheism were true,
then maybe they would occur and maybe they wouldn't. They offer no
natural selection advantage or disadvantage (under the assumption that
atheism is correct). Possibly it is inevitable that brains capable of
emotion and understanding must have this possibility (or are easily
damaged to allow religious experiences; for example certain types of
epilepsy enhance religious sensitivity). But the existence of religious
experiences represents a small, but not particularly powerful, piece
of evidence for the existence of God.

Finally we have the argument from miracles. Russell almost certainly
rejected this because
he believed the possibility of miracles had been disproved by various
philosophical arguments; and he believed that most people, including
the academic theologians, accepted these arguments as sound. Many
liberal theologians do reject the miraculous; their deconstruction and
re-interpretation of holy scripture is built upon this assumption.
But that does not mean that the arguments against miracles by Hume,
Spinoza and their successors are convincing. To my mind, they are all
easily refuted.

The main point is that these are all philosophical arguments. As such,
they are all built upon certain premises. Theists have a different set
of premises, which allow the miraculous to occur. Now let us treat
this as a scientific problem. We have two different theories. They
make different predictions. We have some evidence which contradicts
one theory and is consistent (within errors) with the other. So we
reject the first theory, and accept the second one as a live possibility.
If the premise of atheism invariably leads to some theory or another which
contradicts this evidence, then we should reject that premise.
When theory contradicts experiment, experiment always wins; that's the
first rule of science.

Hume (for example) built up a philosophical argument against miracles.
Yet there is evidence that miracles occur and have occurred. What
Hume would have us do is to use his argument to dismiss the evidence.
What we should do instead is to use the evidence to suggest that
Hume's premises are false. Of course, Hume would claim that his
premises are themselves based on evidence. Philosophical premises
cannot be deduced from observed evidence; they can only be shown to be
consistent with observed evidence. Hume has some premises which are
consistent with a particular body of experimental evidence, and when
worked to a conclusion those premises tell him that miracles are
impossible. But then theists also have a set of premises, which are
consistent with both the evidence that Hume considered and the
possibility of miracles. So we then have some evidence that a miracle
occurred. What else are we expected to do but reject the premises on
which Hume's argument was built?

However, the full discussion of the possibility of the miraculous is
a big topic, and I have already written enough in this post, so I
will have to save it until next time (but see chapter 16
here).

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